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New delivery auction websites save money and CO2

I recently got a courier to bring a large cupboard from Manchester to my flat in central London, but for about a sixth of the cost I was expecting. What's more, I had about a dozen different men with vans, courier companies and removal firms all clamouring to get the job.

True, it was a fantastically good-looking cupboard. But there was a more pressing reason: I was using a website called Shiply -- a website which works like eBay, only instead of having people bid upwards to buy your old sofas, delivery companies undercut each other downwards in auctions to deliver them.

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But Shiply's no longer alone in this business, and more companies are starting up to compete. I recently tried out a similar website, AnyVan. It launched over a year after Shiply, but offers a very similar service. The problem these sites tackle is simple: Removal firms travel from one side of the country to the other, drop off the entire contents of somebody's home, then return back to base with an empty van.

What sites like Shiply and AnyVan are doing is allowing those removal firms to find something to transport on the return journey. And, because it's seen as something of a bonus delivery, they're happy to accept just a few quid for the job, and AnyVan makes its money by taking a cut of the final bid (from the delivery firm, not you).

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ByRuby Lott-Lavigna

I got a cupboard and a full-size electric piano from Manchester to London Bridge, for less than £40. But it's a business model that favours delivery firms as much as it does the people who need stuff delivering. All I had to do was list what I wanted transporting, where it was going from, where it was going to and when I'd like it to be moved. It cost nothing to list the job. Then, over the following hours and days, bids from delivery specialists rolled in: £150, £120, £100, £60, £50, £45, £42, £40, £35. I just had to have a look at who was bidding and choose someone to do the job.

But more adventurous deliveries have been made internationally, says AnyVan founder Angus Elphinstone, who talked to Wired this week via email.

I asked him about the possibility of adapting AnyVan's model to fit other modes of transport. "We would never totally shun the idea of expanding into more global shipping solutions," he told me. "A recent shipment of furniture from Scotland to Australia was delivered within a container, as part of another shipment already going there. "We have already seen international shipments such as Dubai to Libya, as well as a house move from the UK to France, Antiques from Denmark to the UK and many more successful international ones."

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ByMatt Burgess

There is, of course, an element of risk involved. Just as eBay can play host to rogue sellers, so, too, can delivery auction sites play host to rogue vans, or as I've decided to call them, "worrier couriers". AnyVan tackles the problem in a similar way to eBay. "Our process of screening our transport providers is one of linking them to a fixed registered address," Elphinstone told me. "This comes in the way of a welcome pack that is sent out to all the transport providers that register on the site. In this pack is a unique verification passkey which transport providers need to enter when logged in. Once they have done this their status will change from unverified to verified."

But he addressed my problem directly: "Having an unverified status does not prevent anyone from using the site. However, for the very reasons that you have raised, a company that remains unverified and has no history is less likely to win any jobs."

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It transpires that as with eBay, vigilance is key. But it could reward you with a veritable bargain.

So could such delivery auction sites become a solid way of getting X from A to B in the F (future)? In my experience at least, it really could be for one-off large jobs -- just as eBay and classified ads are for one-off sellings-of-massive-bits-of-old-crap.

It's unlikely to appeal to people needing to send tens or hundreds of items each week, as it could become quite a time-consuming process. But when you need to deliver a new quad bike, a biodiesel processor, or need a motorbike taking to Arzachena, Italy (all deliveries genuinely completed through AnyVan), then I believe this can -- and should -- become your first consideration, and a very green one at that.